The invention is concerned with improvements in or relating to the handling of textile yarn, particularly the control loose fly or lint released by yarns during a textile manufacturing process.
In the supply of yarn to a textile machine it is customary, for example, to mount a plurality of yarn bobbins upon support members in a creel arrangement, yarn drawn off from the bobbins travelling through yarn guides, feed devices, tensioners, stop motions and the like before it is used by the textile machine.
During this travel, loose fibres are inclined to fall away from the main fibres of the yarn, for instance when they pass over contact points such as the yarn guides and the like mentioned above. These loose fibres are known as `lint` or `fly`.
Several problems are caused by lint. For example, lint often accumulates in a yarn guide and tends to block the passage. This may break the yarn either at a position remote from the operational zone of the machine when the yarn detection system will stop the machine, or in the zone itself when a fault in the fabric may be caused. Occasionally, lumps of lint may be taken into the fabric, which will produce faulty fabric, and also may cause damage to the fabric-producing elements (such as needles in a knitting machine). Lint floating in the atmosphere in a work room is a health hazard, and any lint which settles in the work room, particularly in the roof structure, may be a fire hazard. Not least of the problems caused is the risk that lint from a coloured yarn may contaminate adjacent yarn or fabric and result in sub-standard goods.
Many attempts have been made to overcome some of the foregoing problems, mainly consisting of systems to blow the lint away from the contact point in the yarn path which may assist in solving the difficulties associated with the fabric and the machine but does nothing for the hazard problems and indeed may even worsen them.